In some circles, that has distinguished Patton as an unusually
credible advocate for climate action who speaks from the
suit-and-trouser world of the financial sector, where crunching numbers
outpaces environmental ideology. One observer described her as a
"dynamo."

But behind the forceful public presence is a choppier business
environment for Zurich, sources say. Patton and her small team of
employees were also tasked with creating new types of insurance policies
that would be used by climate-concerned customers, ranging from hybrid
car owners to utilities that store carbon dioxide underground. Zurich
may have seen those products as not popular enough to justify a
standalone climate office, some observers say. The products will instead
be folded into the company's traditional lines of business.

The move has gained greater attention for its potential
reverberations on climate policy. While many observers believe that the
insurance industry could help depoliticize the climate debate, there's
little evidence it's willing to do that. And it appears there may be
less now.

Some observers described Zurich as perhaps the only company that had
both a household brand in the United States and a willingness to talk
openly about the risks of climate change. (Farmers Insurance Co. is a
subsidiary.) That has placed Zurich at the top among insurers who
portray rising temperatures as a business threat that could harm the
economy, as opposed to an environmental, and often partisan, peril,
advocates say.

When Zurich announced its "climate initiative" six years ago, it was
an effort, in part, to rally other members of the massive industry to
get involved in shaping public policy. It warned of worsening climate
risks that foretold of more than just sharpening damage from floods and
storms: The industry also faces increased pressure from regulators and,
in the eyes of customers, reputational risk if it doesn't act, the
company said.

In a white paper from that period, it noted that only "a fraction"
of insurers were taking the threat seriously, adding that the industry
is "still a long way from meeting the enormity of the challenge."...

Now, after failing to persuade other insurers to join it in crafting
public policy, Zurich appears to be shifting strategyin a political
atmosphere that has gotten more divisive on climate issues, not less.

"The internal meaning could be that they don't want to stick their
neck out, that they want to be less visible with regard to climate
change in general," said Walter Stahel, director of risk management
research at the Geneva Association, a Swiss think tank funded by the
insurance industry. "And they want to break it down into much more
concrete [efforts] to impose adaptation measures."

Zurich might be stepping back from its public policy role because
lawmakers hadn't responded to its efforts, Stahel said. He said it's "a
pity" that the dialogue between Zurich and lawmakers could slacken, but
he noted that the company could be testing other strategies to force
changes.

"I think insurers would have a number of other hammers to hit the nail" on climate change, Stahel said.

A Zurich spokeswoman confirmed yesterday that the climate office is
being closed. But she strongly rebutted assertions by industry observers
that it represents a de-emphasis on climate change. She pointed to
increased investments and bolstered research efforts that are meant to
address warming.

The company, for example, recently launched an effort to measure the
value of flood protection measures like sea walls, elevating homes and
absorbent surfaces. The $30 million program is meant to make it easier
for communities to justify upfront costs for resiliency, leading to less
damage.

"Zurich's commitment to addressing climate resilience and extreme
weather has not changed," Zurich spokeswoman Jennifer Schneider said in a
statement. "We have integrated the knowledge and expertise generated
through this [climate] office into every aspect of our business. We will
continue to work passionately to help our customers and communities
understand and protect themselves from risks and become more resilient
and sustainable to natural disasters and extreme weather."...Others say the announcement falls heaviest on public policy, not on
climate-related research. The industry generally has handled the complex
issue of climate change cautiously, they say, refraining from becoming
heavily involved in risky legislative tussles.

"Wow, what a loss," said Andrew Logan, who follows the industry for
Ceres, a group of investors that's pushing for action on climate change.

"We've lost a major voicewho consistently brought insurer
perspectives to the climate debate," he added, referring to Zurich's
Patton. "So with them gone we end up with an industry that is
surprisingly mute given the scale of economic risk that they face."

Zurich's climate office will be shuttered Monday,less than a week
after a top Zurich executive attended a meeting at the White Houseabout
climate change with nine other industry officials. The closing also
intersects with a flurry of publicity over the bipartisan "Risky
Business" report, which predicts that coastal damage in the United
States could rise by $7 billion annually from sea-level rise and
hurricanes over the next 15 years.

Still, as some observers see a retreat by Zurich, others see a
shifting strategy that embeds research and product development in the
guts of the company, rather than being held in a stand-alone climate
office.

"I don't think the company is de-emphasizing climate," said one industry official who supports climate action.

When Zurich unveiled its climate initiative six years ago, it also
formed a Climate Change Advisory Council to give the company new ideas
about how to prepare for the impacts of warming on its business. The
council's co-chairman, Ernst von Weizsäcker, lauded Zurich at the time
as a company others would emulate.

Now Weizsäcker, a former college dean and German lawmaker, expressed
disappointment -- and a little concern -- with the insurer's new
direction.

(Evan) Alvarez resigned his post this
morning, which was made public by a release sent out by MFCR with a copy
of his resignation. In the letter, he says that tea party activists
have too much of a voice in the party, "and because of that, the
platform of the Republican Party has shifted too far to the right in my
opinion." In a separate email to me, he says he has already begun
talking with Democrats about joining their party.

Alvarez
came under scrutiny from McDaniel supporters and some members of MFCR
who criticized him and others foropenly supporting incumbent U.S. Sen.
Thad Cochran. Alvarez defended individual members' support of either
candidate so long as they were not doing so in an official capacity with
MFCR.

The impeachment hearing was scheduled for Saturday at the
downtown Jackson headquarters of the Mississippi Republican Party.
Approximately 35 McDaniel and tea party supporters showed up to protest
any impeachment of Busby. In the emailed statement to me, Alvarez
described the decision not to impeach Busby as follows:

"When
we informed him there wasn't going to be an impeachment, but simplya
reprimand and apologyhis attitude became more ignorant and cruel. He
said he was not apologizingfor anything and refused to be reprimanded
for the two robocalls. At that point myself and the staffer at the GOP
decided to cancel the meeting that day, and push it back to another
Saturday in the coming month. We came to that conclusion because there
was no way we would be able to have an effective meeting with roughly 35
yelling tea partiers in the lobby of the building, that were feeding
Busby's ignorant attitude."

At the end of his written
statement to me, which was in response to my asking about the outcome of
the impeachment hearing, Alvarez wrote:

"After that whole
event and a lot of thought up to know, I am leaving my position in the
organization and have begun to speak to members of the Mississippi
Democratic Party and will be changing my party affiliation to Democrat
in the next few days. I have attached my letter to this email explaining
the reasons that I can no longer be Chairman, and why I can no longer
standby and identify with the Republican Party."

You can read Alvarez's full resignation letter below:

"I
over the last 48 hours or so, I have been in deep thought about the
future of MFCR and of the Republican Party. I have come to the
conclusion that I no longer want to be the leader of the Mississippi
Federation of College Republicans. I refuse to simply let people break
the rules and think they don't have to answer for their actions, admit
they were wrong, or even apologize. When I ran for Chairman in the
spring, I ran to be Chairman of the Mississippi Federation of College
REPUBLICANS, not the Mississippi Federation of College "Tea Partiers".
Also, I believe that the Republican Party has allowed these groups of
extremist to have too much of a voice and because of that, the platform
of the Republican Party has shifted too far to the right in my opinion.For example, the drastic cuts on needed federal funding that these
groups of Republican extremistssupport would leave society weak and
crippled. Secondly, their far right stance on immigration is not only
ignorant, but it is cruel. After all our country is a nation of
immigrants and should welcome immigrants from every country. My father
was an immigrant from Cuba and came to America in 1959 because of the
freedom that this nation offers. This freedom should be available to
each and every individual that wants to come work hard and pursue his or
her goals in America. Finally, I believe the Republican Party has not
done enough to put a stop to the hatred and cruel words and actions of
the far right extremist in the party. The Republican Party consistently
says they are trying to appeal to minorities, but this will never happen
when we allow members of party to say cruel and ignorant things about
Women, African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities in our
country. I simply cannot be apart of organization that have members who
support these far right extremist views, much less be the Chairman of
the organization. So in conclusion, I, Evan Alvarez, am hereby
resigning my position as Chairman of the Mississippi Federation of
College Republicans, as well as my membership at the Mississippi State
Chapter of MFCR. This change is effective immediately!"" image above from Facebook via Clarion-Ledger

It is an issue that Halilhodzic did not take kindly to
being quizzedabout, adding: "Ramadan is here and I read in some
Algerian newspapers criticisms about me, about my image, about my
honour.. "They are trying to raise hatred against Vahid, against my family, and this is really disgusting.

"Those who continue criticising our team and my
actions, I think it's shameful. But I will continue [as coach], I will
continue working with this team. I'm sorry that you continue criticising
what I do. "Stop asking me about Ramadan, otherwise I will get up and leave."

Thirty-seven
percent, by contrast, said they had a strong feeling they would vote
for McConnell, 7 percent had a weak feeling they’d vote for him and 2
percent said they lean toward voting for him.

Six percent of voters said they are undecided.

Among independents, 56 percent said they would likely vote for Grimes, while 30 percent said they would back McConnell.

Just
over half of voters said they would be more likely to vote for a
candidate who wants to stop President Obama from “waging a war on coal.”
Grimes has said she opposes those efforts, and has even blamed McConnell for the administration’s coal rules.

Nearly
half of voters said they would be much more likely to vote for the
candidate who wants to raise the minimum wage. McConnell has opposed hiking the minimum wage, while Grimes supports it....

Days before
what hasturned into a contentious June 10 primary against Dave Brat,
who has been surging in the polls after centering his campaign on
countering amnesty, CBS6 anchor Bill Fitzgerald asked Cantor what the
country coulddo about its illegal immigrants and the children "coming
across the border now."

Cantor was referring to what has commonly been referred to as his "Kids Act," which, as Breitbart News
reported, would grant amnesty to illegal immigrants who were brought to
America through "no fault of their own"--like many of the illegal
immigrant children who have been pouring into the country in recent
weeks."...

"General David Petraeus, the former CIA director and head of the
international forces in Afghanistan (ISAF), has today said that the
United States is suffering deeply because of partisanship, and said that
the country needs immigration reform."...

"Gerrymandering in the House of Representatives… has [made it] less
bipartisan because of the policy divide… what has happened because of
the redrawing of districts... there has become a tendency for the red
districts to be bright red and the blue districts to be bright blue.
This is a real problem.

"The primaries are more important and the general elections are a
foregone conclusion. That’s a concern because it does make it more
difficult to do what Ronald Reagan cold do with Tip O'Neill…reach
across the aisle. It was ultimately what led to the closing of
government…to the implementing of sequestration."...Petraeus refused to be drawn in detail on the situation in Iraq,
though he did note that "The United States cannot be the air force for
the Shia militias."

The conference in Londonwas organised by the Centre for Policy
Studies in honour of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Former First Lady Nancy Reagan sent a message of congratulations to the
event organisers, who also attracted keynote speakers such as Niall
Ferguson, Roger Scruton, Jonah Goldberg, Daniel Hannan MEP, Dr. Art
Laffer, and John O’Sullivan."

The institute will focus on economic
forecasts, communications, public policy and emerging markets.

It will
also help the firm’s portfolio companies expand globally, K.K.R. said.
Mr. Petraeus’s team at the institute will include Ken Mehlman, the onetime chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Henry McVey, K.K.R.’s global head of macro and asset allocation....

Mr. Petraeus drew criticism
for his role in developing the notorious “talking points” in the days
after the September 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in
Benghazi, Libya.

When the Obama administration this month
disclosed a trove of e-mails sent among officials discussing the talking
points, some expressed the belief that Mr. Petraeus had appeared overly
concerned with protecting the C.I.A.’s image at the expense of the
State Department."...

After all, a nation-state doesn't exist unless it controls its
borders and protects its citizens. We, the People, do neither. But the
existential danger here comes not from the assault itself.
Nightmarishly, it comes from the Obama administration, which, in its
greatest betrayal, is leading, or at least supporting, the aliens'
charge.

That's why the cavalry isn't coming.

A normal government -- one with the best interests of its own
citizens at heart -- would have taken immediate steps to 1) halt these
border crossings that pose a dire threat to public health and safety,
and 2) set in motion the deportation efforts necessary to return these
illegal aliens to their home countries.

But the Obama administration is not a normal government. It saw these
veritable columns of minor aliens forming, and, rather than stop them
from entering the country, actually sought to help them, borrowing a
phrase from Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa.,wipe their feet on our "welfare
welcome mat" and stay.

How do I know this? Every American should examine the Department of
Homeland Security solicitation notice that appeared six months ago at
the federal business opportunities site FedBizOpps.gov. The notice seeks
"Escort Services for Unaccompanied Alien Children," describing exactly
the services now required to process, not deport, this massive influx.

According to this notice posted back on Jan. 29, 2014, DHS was
already gearing up to receive "approximately 65,000 UAC in total."

"Resettlement," in other words, means these illegals are staying --
at least if the Obama administration has its way. This may fulfill a
"mission critical responsibility" for the Central American countries
whose nationals, including gangbangers and drug runners, are crashing
our border. There is nothing, however, in the American interest about
it. Come to think of it, there's nothing in the American interest in the
entire refugee resettlement mission -- literally. According to the UAC
services webpage of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the mission is
to assist these minor illegal aliens "in becoming integrated members
of our global society."

Take Lawrenceville, a tiny town in southern Virginia. One day this
month, Lawrenceville woke up to discover that Washington was
unilaterally about to turn this town of 1,400 citizens into the host of
500 illegal minors (these minors are mainly teenaged and male). Such a
massive population transfer of Spanish-speaking, probably mainly young
male aliens into the historic town, of course, would have changed it
forever -- or for as long as the bloc remained, which could be forever.

In Lawrenceville, a grassroots uproar brought a halt to Washington's
designs. In Escondido, California, another show of people-power
thwarted a similar Washington housing plan for alien minors. A
burgeoning anti-Washington movement is clearly crossing party lines. In
Baltimore, for example, Democrats recently nixed the feds' alien minor
housing plan. In Springfield, Massachusetts, Democratic Mayor Dominic
Barno formally asked the State Department to send no more refugees. His
city, he says, is overwhelmed.

I can hear the resettlement crowd asking: "Where is the compassion?"
"Where is the charity?" But what they're really looking for is taxpayer
money.

As Ann Corcoran, purveyor of the must-read website, Refugee
Resettlement Watch, has taught me,population replacement is big
business, and the zealous bureaucrats who seek to "fundamentally
transform" this country make a good, taxpayer-funded living while
they're at it.

So, while your border is in tatters and perhaps your town under
siege, know that you are paying for it.

"(Editor’s Note: As part of its ongoing investigation of the
surging influx of illegal aliens across the U.S.-Mexico border,
CNSNews.com recently went to the border in McAllen, Texas. Presented
here are our reporter’s personal observations of the detention facility
there and the conditions faced by the illegals and the U.S. Border
Patrol agents trying to manage the situation.)"

"When you step foot into the control room at the U.S. Border Patrol
station in McAllen, Texas, the first thing that hits you is the smell.

Hovering somewhere between urine and unwashed humanity, the air is
thick and hot. The sound inside the circular, glass-enclosed control
room is like that of a beehive, humming with the noise of hundreds of
voices mixed with buzzers and footsteps.

“This is where we do the processing,” the border patrol agent tells us.

The border patrol officer gestures to a series of white, cinderblock
rooms that form a ring around the enclosed control area. Each small
space is sealed by a thick gray door, which is kept locked until an
officer motions for the switchboard operator to open it.

Beside each door, dozens of tanned faces press against glass windows,
watching the movement on the open floor around them. Dozens more lie
on the hard floor in the middle of the rooms, or on the wide benches
attached to the walls.

Most of the visible faces belong to young children or teens; the
adults are usually clustered in the back or tending to toddlers and
infants.

The scene is devastating, and it’s only one of several windows into
the illegal immigrationcrisis that’s sweeping across the Rio Grande
Valley Sector of the U.S.-Mexico border. Since October 2013, more than
181,000 illegal immigrants have already crossed this 250-costal-mile
area alone, and the McAllen, Texas station has been the hardest hit.

Border patrol officers are doing the best they can, but they simply
aren’t equipped to handle the masses that have flooded their facilities.

The people – all Latinos, as far as I can tell – are divided into
several groups: family units are crammed into several rooms, teens 14
and under in the next, teens 15 and older in another, and single men and
women in separate holding areas on the other side of the circle.

People of all ages and genders – anywhere from young children to old
men – are systematically brought out of their rooms to be “processed,”
which involves taking down any identification, background, where they
say they’re headed, anything they can provide. It’s usually not much.

“This is where they start,” the agent explains over the noise. “When
they’re picked up at the border, they come here. Once we’ve processed
them, they’re taken to the sally port.”That’s where we head next.

The sally port is a converted bus depot attached to the border patrol
station. Typically able to hold upwards of 40 buses at a time, the
large, cement-floored space has been converted into a makeshift shelter
to house the thousands of illegal immigrants that have been flooding
the system since February.

Normally, the border patrol detains people anywhere from 12 hours to
three days before turning them over to Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, or the Department of Health and Human Services, in the case
of unaccompanied minors. But a backlogof people is now forcing them
to house people for sometimes more than a week, agents said.

“We’ve gotten pretty good at logistics,” one agents told us. “But we’re still only working with what we’ve got.”

The McAllen station is authorized for 380 people, he explains. It’s currently housing more than 1,100.

They won’t let us in the sally port – the “folks in Washington”
require a scheduledvisit for that, they tell us. But they say we can
stand outside the locked gates at the bus entrance and look. I’ve been outside for all of thirty seconds, but sweat is already
starting to bead on my neck by the time I approach the gate to peer
inside.If the scene inside the station’s control room is bad, the view into the sally port is appalling.

At first, there doesn’t appear to be a floor. Then I realize that’s
only because I can barely see it through the mass of bodies strewn
across the massive space. There are people everywhere – lying down,
standing, sitting, stepping over others in a strained attempt to move
around. Border patrol agents mill about with clipboards, talking to
various people and administering basic medicine.

Off to one side, next to a row of blue porta potties, a group of four
young girls are curled up together on the floor, resting on one
another’s limbs. All four are caked in mud to the knee, most likely from
their trip across the border. They remind me of a litter of kittens I
once saw, scrunched together in a little ball.

There’s a simple strip of yellow crime scene tape that ropes off a
small section of the space, the only barrier that separates the healthy
from those who have been diagnosed with scabies.

In the “sick ward,” a mother sits with her back against the locked
gate, cradling a small child in her arms. She wipes the sweat from her
own forehead before placing a half a dozen wet wipes on the little boy’s
face and chest, trying to cool him down. A second toddler sits beside
her, sucking on a bottle filled with something that looks like orange
juice.

A border patrol bus pulls up to the gate. The doors open and a dozen
more immigrants, mostly children, pile out, having come straight from
the banks of the Rio Grande where smugglers ferried them from the
Mexican bank to the United States. An agent ushers them through the
door and into the processing room.

5. "On the U.S. side of the Rio Grande River in McAllen, Texas, looking
over at Mexico, where people are standing on the shore and where someillegals were taken to the U.S. side by Jet skiand dropped off in the
brush at the riverside. (Photo: CNSNews.com)". ======================

"It is obviously karmathat Haley Barbour is equipped with looks that
resemble Ned Beatty from the “purty mouth” scene in the movie
Deliverance - or perhaps his portrayal of the corrupt Senator in the
movie Shooter. Given that the former head of the Republican National
Committee and Mississippi Governor will evidently wallow in the excreta
and politically copulate with just about anyone, it’s appropriate....

Haley Barbour

Consider: Haley’s Mississippi mafia has spent the past three
weeksverifying Barbour’s electoral promiscuity in his hysteria to drag
old Thad Cochran – and by old, I mean an OLD 76 – across the finish line
against challenger Chris McDaniel. And by Mississippi mafia – in this
case – I mean Barbour, Karl Rove, John Cornyn, the National Republican
Senatorial Committee (NRSC), Mayor Bloomberg,Mitt Romney’s campaign
manager, Facebook’s President, the Chamber of Crony Commerce, liberal
black activists, various lobbyists, GOP consultants and Super PACs – to
name a few. I would include Cochran himself in this cabal, but it is
unclear if he could pass a thorough autopsy – and his presence often
seemed irrelevant, if not detrimental.

Rumors have it this is the general attitude among his own Senate staffers too.

Certainly this kind of activity is not a new development for
Barbour, now a wealthy lobbyist and power broker – yet what he and his
minions did the past three weeks in Mississippi has now set a new low
standard for odious campaign tactics practiced by the Republican
Establishment. The corrupt, unethical and immoral political
cross-dressing that Ned, er, Haley and his team implemented over the
past 21 days is simply breathtaking.

To start with, the Cochran camp bragged about polling some 35
thousand mostly African American Democrat votes to their side – in yes, a
Republican Primary.

These votes corrupted what should have been about an 8-9 per
cent win for McDaniel. Never mind that the 35 thousand Democrats will
never vote for any Republican in any general election beyond maybe
15-20% – and that they were motivated by walking around money, the
promise of even more pork coming Mississippi’s way – and all manner of
other considerations. This was in fact verified by Mississippi’s
Democrat Party Chairman Ricky Cole.

To make it worse, one motivational tacticused on African Americans was
to parrot the liberal line that Tea Partiers are racists and want to
suppress the black vote. Say what you want about political infidelity,
but using liberal talking points against other Republicans is as low as
you can go Ned.

In addition, the NRSC gave their staff the “week off,” then
redeployed them to Mississippi to do whatever it took to turn out
Democrats for ole Thad. Keep in mind, the NRSC raises money under the
guise that they work against Democrats.In Mississippi, they bribed
Democrats. This was an all out effort by Washington Republicans, all the
while moaning about “outside groups” polluting the pristine Mississippi
electorate on behalf of McDaniel.

So where did all the money for this come from? A bunch of it
came from a lobbyist and Senator only fund raiser hosted by Mitch
McConnell – who fresh off savaging Matt Bevin – raised some 800 thousand
dollars from Washington to do the same to McDaniel the very day after
the Primary three weeks ago. This is the same McConnell who has yet to
savage Barack Obama over anything.

Moreover, there was never even any pretense that Cochran
understands, let alone concurs with, conservative base principles. He
ran about as shamelessly liberal a campaign as any Mississippi Democrat
would run. He didn’t even pretend to be conservative.

Did I mention that this was a Republican Primary?

Now Barbour is fond of saying that “Mike Castle is the best we
can ever do” in Delaware, and has said the same of Olympia Snowe, Susan
Collins, Scott Brown and other moderates in the Senate. He uses this as
his justification for working against people like Christine O’Donnell
and Sharon Angle. He self-righteously claims this in his frequent
speeches to Republican organizations.

Frankly, he’s right about Brown – but he’s wrong about Castle
and maybe about Snow and Collins – but for the sake of argument, I’ll
concede Haley’s point for just a minute. If this “best we can ever do”
litmus is the guiding philosophy, then areyou telling me that

Thad
Cochran “is the best we can ever do” in Mississippi?

Hell no he’s not! It would be hard to do any worse in Mississippi.

By Haley’s own theory, he shouldhave been working to defeat
Cochran, not desperately pulling out every trick in the book, and some
that aren’t even in the book, to preserve power for a man so clueless
that he doesn’t even know what the Tea Party movement is about. Yes, I
realize that argument uses logic, and up against the naked aggression of
power preservation, logic doesn’t stand a chance.

Obviously, Barbour and his coterie are not concerned with any
philosophy or principles other than greed and power. They are much more
interested in certain people retaining government power than they are
reducing government power in the first place. This is the axis on which
the tension between the GOP establishment and the Tea Party / base
exists. This intramural battle is of course pleasing to the Democrats.
It’s the only thing standing between them and electoral disaster this
November." via Free Republic

"So it's a done deal, and for the conservatives, it's regroup time. I
just want you to be prepared. There's gonna be an all-out assault on
the people that you think have done a good job and by extension an
all-out assault on you. It's gonna come from both parties, gonna come
from the media....

There will be a fast move in Republican circles to push
"comprehensive immigration reform," to go all-in now. I can't tell you
what the Republicans think they're gonna achieve, except this: I really
do believe that some of this is oriented toward driving the
conservatives out of the party. I really think some of this is oriented
toward the Republicans actually seeking to get rid of their
conservative base.

Even if it takes 15 years in the wilderness to rebuild a new base of
people who don't embarrass them, of people who are of the right
temperament. Maybe that's what they're willing to do. Maybe they've
got commitments from their donors to keep 'em afloat if they just get
rid of some of these wacko right-wing extremists. "We'll just go all-in
here. We'll try to put together a new base of really responsible
moderate, temperate, independent-type American voters.

"We'll go out, we'll expand our demographics, we'll get a lot of
Hispanics doing this,by throwing away the Tea Party, and we'll get a
lot of women voters coming back. We'll throw away our base, and we'll
get the transgender and the lesbian, gay, bisexual groups, we'll go out
and get the Indians that are ticked off at the Redskins. We'll get them!
We'll come out against that, and pretty soon we're gonna own the
country."

That is the way they're thinking, and all they gotta do to bring all
that off? All they gotta do is throw away their base. That's Christmas
morning for 'em.Now, the Democrats never stop whipping up their base.
Have you noticed? There's never any pressure on the Democrats to get
rid of their base, and you never hear Democrats ripping in their base.
You never hear the Democrats acting embarrassed -- and believe me, their
base is genuine Looney Tunes....

Here in Georgia, we also have an open primary system where we don’t
have to declare a party affiliation when registering to vote, and
anybody can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primaries. So I
can imagine being just as frustrated if a strong progressive candidate
lost a close Democratic primary because the Republican-lite candidate
recruited Republicans to swing the election his (or her) way.

If open primaries do increase the likelihood of electing more
centrist candidates, then that can be a double-edged sword. For example,
Democrats might be relieved when a less extreme Republican is nominated
in a safe red state because of open primaries. But then again, it
wouldn’t feel so good if a Republican-lite candidate defeated a strong
progressive in a blue state for the same reason.

I
believe CMV is about Mike Lee having powerful enemies. Few people in
Washington have made any effort to protect our Constitution but Mike Lee
has. After the TARP bailouts across the entire nation people said
throw them out, but 97% were re-elected. Not Bob Bennett, Utah
Republican Delegates fired their Senator who was named in The House of
Representatives investigation as being responsible for the mortgage
crisis. Talk about having primaries, the Caucus/Delegate system put
Senator Orrin Hatch in a primary. Arnold Schwarzenegger became the
governor of California because of their direct primary election. CMV is
going to end up creating a system where candidates can buy your vote.
That's exactly what these wealthy people want."

"You
have to hand it to the GOP establishment. When their interests are
threatened, they pull out all the stops. They demonstrated that in
dragging GOP senator Thad Cochran across the finish line in tonight’s
runoff in Mississippi....

Thad Cochran’s
allies performed a version of that ploy tonight by openly encouraging
liberal Democrats to vote in the primary. Turnout was up by some 15
percent from the June 3 contest between Cochran and Chris McDaniel. The New York Times
reported that “turnout increased by 92 percent in Jefferson County, the
county where black voters represent the largest share of eligible
voters in the country.”.

Thad Cochran will continue in the Senate
only because the GOP establishment used “walking around” moneyto drum
up minority liberal voters for Cochran. In Mississippi, despite an
unenforceable law saying that only voters intending to vote Republican
can participate in GOP primaries, there was nothing preventing that kind
of primary manipulation....

Here in Utah, Republican primaries - once restricted to registered
Republicans - have been forced open by the establishment as of this
year, in revenge for the GOP kicking Bob Bennett out of his senate seat
in 2010.

Who did this? Former Governor and Bush HHS Secretary Mike
Leavitt lead the betrayal. He was helped by Mitt Romney, who endorsed
the effort.